Sweet Tomatoes is the salad bar restaurant down the street from us. Soup, salad, pasta, pizza. We love it. We’ve been regulars for 15 years. We went with Mariana and the kids yesterday. We’re wondering if they’ll ever let us back in.
Round one for Justin. Shredded cheese, chopped eggs and sweet pickles. Lettuce does not even enter the equation, and his handling of tongs is an art unto itself.
Round one for Justuce. Caesar salad, sweet pickles and about 2,200 croutons. Ranch dressing on the croutons.
Justin: “When we get ice cream?”
Me: “Eat your dinner.”
Then come the drinks. Oh Lord, the drinks.
If it were possible to hook a soda fountain directly to an outdoor garden hose and simply spray Mug Root Beer all over the restaurant floor, Justin would be first in line. Since that’s not an option, he makes do by just holding his cup under the spout with the button pressed down until it runs all over the floor. I really do hope somewhere for Justin’s sake there’s a quantum physicist working on the unique challenge of fitting 144 ounces of soda into a 10 ounce plastic cup with a lid. Until then, restaurant managers, let’s just go with the assumption you'll need at least two of those “Caution: Wet Floor” signs anytime you see my son trotting up to the starting gate.
We get to the table and they both decide they don’t like sweet pickles. Instead of just ignoring them or pushing them off to one side, they start winging them onto my plate with the accuracy of a couple of 20 meter Olympic shot putters. These are the same kids who can't make underwear go into a hamper, but sweet pickles at 40 paces? No problem at all.
Justin: “When we get ice cream?”
Me: “Eat your shredded cheese.”
Second round, Justuce comes back with a plate full of tomato wedges. I mean a plate full of tomato wedges. As in, all the tomato wedges she could find. As in, they will have to go back into the kitchen and make more tomato wedges. She proudly eats two.
Justin, meanwhile, has strolled up to today's soup choices, which he declares “pee-pee, poo-poo, poopy, ga-ga,” before moving on to pizza and macaroni. He will take one slice of pizza bread and half a spoonful of mac and cheese back to the table, study them sullenly for five minutes, then ask for more sweet pickles. Request denied.
Justuce, on the other hand, has gone back for broccoli, which surprises me, because we tease the kids with broccoli all the time. “Hey guys, let’s bake some broccoli cookies.” “Which donut do you want? The chocolate one or the broccoli one?” Broccoli in our house is the kiss of death. Yet there she is, eating broccoli. I'm almost positive she's doing it just to spite me, because she has that little half-smug look on her face, but hey, whatever works.
Holy cow, take a look at this mess!
Salad bars and buffets have it backwards. Instead of charging adults full price and kids half price, they should do it the other way around. Your kids will waste twice as much food as you could possibly fit in your adult-sized stomach. Adam and I sort of dutifully, half-heartedly try to pick up the slack and eat what they're pushing aside, waste not want not and all that, but truly, it's an exercise in futility. It just happens way too fast.
By now, it’s time for a soda refill (why not?), so as the restaurant staff casually slips into precautionary diving suits, both kids belly up to the bar to top off their drinks. Justuce has Diet Coke. She is not a soda diva and sticks to the basics, although she will come back to the table and sneak sips of my Fanta Orange, which is okay with me because the adoption books say sharing sweet things with your new adoptive kids provides strong bonding opportunities. So, yes Virginia, I will Fanta her into believing I’m her father.
Justin makes himself a unique concoction of Diet Coke, Mug Root Beer, Red Hi-C, low-calorie Minute Maid Lemonade, and something that smells like coffee. In our early years, Adam made mixtures like this at the soda fountain too, smiled mischievously and called it “making a potion,” because he thought it was charming and childlike and cute. I notice Justin has utterly wiped the mischievous grin off Adam’s lips now that the potion is on the other foot.
Justin: “When we get ice cream?”
Adam: “Drink your coffee.”
Our friend Mariana by this point is horrified and hiding under the table. Fellow diners have slowly cleared away from us. We now have a 30-meter safe zone extending from the center of our table out into all four directions.
The poor woman bussing our table, I feel so bad for her, has now cleared away 72 separate plates and dishes from our station. Justin, with his low spatial awareness issue, has also elbowed her in the boobs four times. What a hellish way to earn a five dollar tip. Our friend Mariana is a cantor, and I’m sure she’s already saying a silent prayer for her.
Nirvana! It’s time for ice cream!
Justin: “When we get ice cream?”
Me: “Go. Enjoy. Your work here is done.”
He couldn’t possibly do any worse with ice cream.
He returns with a bowl of vanilla soft serve, light on the sprinkles, eats about two bites, burps and pushes it aside.
“Ashley, I don’t want ice cream,” he says, and we all sit dumbfounded, watching it melt.
Another day, another dollar for the Sweet Tomatoes team. Sorry, guys. We’ll make it up to you somehow.
Loved your sweet pickles, by the way. I had 55.
You know. Waste not, want not, all that.
You know. Waste not, want not, all that.
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